A unique online Citizen TV channel set up and run by the education charity WORLDwrite. Dedicated to challenging the status quo and advancing new knowledge, the charity promotes excellence in citizen reporting and provides free film training to volunteers to make this possible. Covering the ideas and stories rarely told, without the constraints of commissioners’ whims, mainstream ratings wars or fear of upsetting conventional wisdom, WORLDbytes’ motto is ‘Don’t shout at the telly, change the message on it’.

We cover a huge range of issues but as an education charity committed to international understanding and global equality we do have some basic principles that we promote on our news channel WORLDbytes. We believe in:

Open Borders and celebrating more people on the planet

Economic growth & serious development for all globally

Challenging all forms of prejudice, anti-democratic and anti-human trends

To find out how to get involved please click here or come and meet us at the Ideas Factory.

THE MANIFESTO CLUB

The Manifesto Club campaigns against the hyperregulation of everyday life. We support free movement across borders, free expression and free association. We challenge booze bans, photo bans, vetting and speech codes - all new ways in which the state regulates everyday life on the streets, in workplaces and in our private lives.

Our rapidly growing membership hails from all political traditions and none, and from all corners of the world. Come to our stall to find out more about our new brand of civil liberties campaigning – and sign up to our flagship campaign against the vetting database.

DEBATING MATTERS COMPETITION

The Academy of Ideas’ Debating Matters Competition provides an experience of engaging in rigorous, well researched and well thought through public debate to young students throughout the UK. Through establishing an environment where large numbers of schools and students benefit from the intellectual challenge posed by the Debating Matters experience, we aim to raise aspirations for educational standards more generally.

Debating Matters offers a fresh, accessible and engaging format for debating contemporary issues. With its focus on substance over style, the competition takes ideas, argument and young people seriously. One of the central tenets of Debating Matters is that young people are intelligent and robust enough to have their ideas held up to critical scrutiny. This scrutiny is provided by a panel of judges in every debate – a mixture of scientists, journalists, lawyers, businessmen, policy advisors and artists. Debating Matters judges are encouraged to be bold and to challenge the students: asking probing questions and providing honest criticism of their arguments. It is this essential interaction between students and our judges which makes Debating Matters unique.

Come and talk to us about getting involved – whether as a school, judge or a sponsor – and help us to extend the Debating Matters challenge to more young people.

SPIKED

spiked is the online magazine that has the modest ambition to make history as well as report it. Launched in 2001, it is a metaphorical missile against misanthropy, putting the case for human endeavour, intellectual risk-taking, exploration, excellence in learning and art, and freedom of speech with no ifs or buts, against today’s myriad miserabilists who would seek to wrap humans in red tape, dampen down our daring, restrain our thoughts, and police our speech. spiked, in the apt words of the New York Times, has a fondness for ‘puncturing all manner of ideological balloons’.

spiked publishes every day, covering everything from coups and culture to sex and football. It is also committed to creating a new generation of gutsy, good journalists, and to that end it helped to found the Young Journalists’ Academy (which has since gone independent) eight years ago and it also runs numerous internship schemes. It is edited by the journalist Brendan O’Neill and managed by Viv Regan. If you want to find out more about spiked, including about writing or interning for us and about the lively and provocative public debates and conferences we host, email Viv at viv.regan@spiked-online.com

JOIN THE INSTITUTE OF IDEAS

The Battle of Ideas weekend is the annual culmination of the Academy of Ideas’ ongoing project. The IoI runs a range of forums that meet monthly to discuss developments in: education, the economy, social policy, current affairs, parenting, the arts, and academia; as well as a monthly book club, a national schools debating competition (www.debatingmatters.com), and other public events. We also produce occasional publications and an award-winning online reviews magazine (www.culturewars.org.uk). IoI associates get a significant reduction on ticket prices for our events as well as other benefits. Most importantly, associates help us continue our work in expanding the boundaries of public debate.

For more information about the Academy of Ideas, contact Geoff Kidder on 020 7269 9220 or see further details here.